Apple Schnapps 2022
Introduction
In bachelor, engineering students have the occasion to choose some optional courses. Among them, there is the ”Bachelor project”, a class to get aquainted with the notions of fermentation and distillation. This year, 15 adventurous students have chosen this project.
This course is a project of three months which is designed to be practical. Indeed, the goal is to make Schnapps starting from a budget of 400€. We have to create and design the product from scratch : from the fruits harvest to the bottling.
Project management like in a company is learned from an economical point of view as well as organisation and processes. Firstly, there is the budget to handle. We have to find sponsors and compromises between what we want and what is affordable. Afterwards, the timing and a team of 15 people have to be managed. Tasks then have to be defined quickly as well as who and when. Finally, research has to be done about fermentation and distillation processes while keeping a critical mind on the information that can be found.
To reach our goal, we split into four teams. The first one handles the planning, the budget and the redaction of the Website. The second one deals with the fermentation process and thus to make some wine. The third one gets some wine and distills it to make Schnapps, a strong alcohol. The fourth one is gathering the bottles with the labels, the tasting party, the organisation of a distillery visit as well as the management of taxes that we have to pay when making alcohol.
In the end, we will obtain 60L of wine at 14°, 10L of Schanpps at 40° and much knowledge.
Here is a picture of the whole team during the distillery visit :
Difficulties
During this project, we had to face some difficulties, the main ones are :
- the obligation to plan everything before starting anything in the project. The apples harvesting season is early during the year (around September/October) but we had to wait for November to squeeze the apples for everything to be ready. We were thus scared that the apples root and that we would have to start over.
- in order to plan the project, we had to gather many information. We had the feeling to go in circles in the beginning because in order to get all the information, we needed the datas of the following steps without carrying them out.
- after the first class, the instructions were really vague. We didn’t know where to start. Most of us thought we were going to have theorical classes about fermentation and distillation then start then move on to practise. But in fact, research has to be done to present them afterward to the other students, a bit like if we were delivering classes.
- organize something with 14 other people is often complicated when we have to wait for someone else’s answer. We also have to agree on big decisions.
Different teams
To complete the project, we decided to split into four different teams. Here is a presentation of each in the form of an interview:
Special Thanks
A big thanks to:
- 'Les délices de Marie’ in Villers-le-Bouillet for the apple squeezing at a very low cost
- Our friends, family and acquaintances for empty wine bottles, apple picking, cooking machine and acidometer
- The ’distillerie du Fays’ in Sprimont for the visit and tasting
- CDC for the free printing of the labels
- Aboutdebois for the oak pieces
- AEES and BEST Liège for the lending of the ecocups and projector for the party
- M. Pfennig and François Chaltin for their support during the semester
